EDITOR'S WALLET.

Otago Witness, Issue 1950, 4 April 1889, Page 37

EDITOR'S WALLET.

A Last Bequest a ' " George Ferguson, you have gone a little too far." I Tale with indignation and outraged pride, the young woman looked him sternly in the face. 1 " Why, Laura," he stammered, in helpless confusion, " I— l— cr — ah— l didn't think I you would care." >S " Didn't think I would care 1 " she echoed, \vith freezing mockery. c i Did you think, sir, that an acquaintance of 10 or 12 months .entitled you to a privilege, unasked, that my most intimate friends of many years' standingrwould have not dared to claim? Have you no conception, sir, of the meaning of the word presumption 1 " ■ \ What had this young man, done ? Intoxicated by her beauty, and fancying he saw in .her glorious dark eyes a challenge, half coy, half saucy, he had rapturously kissed her. Dumb with astonishment, George Fergusotf now quailed before the lightning-like indignation of the high-spirited girl. He saw he had made a fatal mistake. ! " This -must end our acquaintance, Mr !Ferguson,"-she said. "In many respects it has been a pleasant one. I had come to esteem you greatly— to regard you as a young man of high and noble impulses, free from the trivialities, and weaknesses, the inordinate .self-conceit and assurance that, the spirit of the age seems to infuse into the mental constitutions of the young men of modern society. You have thrown yourself down from the pedestal upon which I had mistakenly placed you. Mr Ferguson," she continued, sadly, " hereafter we meet a? strangers." , "Be it so, Laura Kajones," replied he, jsrith recovered self-possession. " I shall not presume to question your right to dismiss me thus summarily, however strongly I mightfeel inclined to protest against the injustice, of your act in sp. doing. _I bow to your mandate. Henceforth we are strangers. But before I take my last farewell of you, 'as I am'now about to do, and go out into the fvorld to struggle with it as only a sorrowing, , lonely man, deprived of his last earthly hope, tnust struggle to prevent, bitter despair from gnawing his heart-strings' asunder — before I leave for -ever the presence of one with whom I have passed so many happy hours, whose memory vill cling to me through all 6he cheerless years that may yet drag their weary length over my head. I have one last request to make of you." i "What is it, sir?" i " Please take your arm from around my neck." i '